Dorner belt conveyors have the answers in pharmaceutical automation project.

Press Information For Immediate Release.  

Automation Supplies Ltd 

Suite 2

West Lancashire Investment Centre 

Maple view 

Skelmersdale 

Lancashire 

WN8 9TG 

Tel  01772 681106 

Fax 0870 8386591 

www.automation-supplies.com 

info@automation-supplies.com 

Skelmersdale 05-10-07 

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Dorner slat conveyors were recently specified in a very unique project for a pharmaceutical third  

party logistics (3PL) provider that offers drug reprocessing for major retail chains and  

pharmaceutical manufacturers. The drugs handled range from common antibiotics to  

highly controlled narcotics. This keeps their facility and processes under the watchful  

eye of the Food and Drug authorities to ensure that the product is properly  

tracked and routed to the correct destination for destruction or return to manufacturer.   

Using their manual processes, the customer was constrained to processing no  

more than 2,200 cases of drugs per day. Shipments often arrive by the truckload where  

hundreds and sometimes thousands of kilos of varying size cartons of up to 25kg in weight  

are offloaded into a secure processing area. Due to solid business growth, the  

customer wanted to handle larger volumes without relocating or significantly remodelling  

their facility. The Dorner conveyors design team worked with the customer to  

engineer a design that would work within these constraints and yet fully automate the  

identification and sorting of the incoming cartons. The end result is an easily  

maintained, flexible, and automated system that is capable of processing up to 12,000  

cases per shift and is expandable to support further growth.   

The system features a unique product induction area that allows truck drivers to unload  

directly onto a Dorner inclined, powered stainless belt conveyer. Packages are then properly  

gapped by the system before entering a multi-identification tunnel that captures the  

barcoded shipper tag information. If the package content includes RFID tagged drugs,  

the Dorner control system can peer through the over-wrap carton and  

instantaneously capture hundreds of RFID serial numbers before the package leaves  

the tunnel. This information is then stored in a database to begin the all important  

immutable tracking required by the authorities. 

After leaving the barcode tunnel, the package moves to an in-line high speed labelling  

station, where it receives a “license plate” label to uniquely identify the package. This  

license plate number is married with the other tracking information in the database. The  

package then continues into another secured area on a Dorner inclined, powered belt  

conveyor onto a fully integrated cross belt sorter. Since the Dorner Autologik system  

knows the belt location, contents, and destination location of each package, the cross  

belt sorter smoothly routes the drugs to their correct processing lanes where the drugs  

receive their final disposition. 

More information on these new conveyors and the services provided by Dorner is available at the following address www.automation-supplies.com/conveyors-belt-roller-slat.html on the Automation Supplies website.  

For more information please contact. 

info@automation-supplies.com 

www.automation-supplies.com 

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